


Lost Boys

by papersage, sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-22
Updated: 2005-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:54:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/papersage, https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McKay is somewhat lost after the events of The Defiant One</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Boys

**I. Tragedy**

Rodney staggers up a sand hill that gives way under his steadily heavier feet. He reaches the peak long enough to collapse and impact hard on the sand with his knees. And then dry heaves while his head spins and his scalp feels like a thousand needles are pricking pricking pricking away at him. It's been hours since he ate, but there must be something inside of him that's trying to force itself out because there he is, gagging and choking and spitting up something watery and yellowish while tears of nothing more than pain stream down his face.

The major shouts his name in the distance. He imagines they're all staring at him, wondering why he's suddenly on all fours, why he just walked away like that, back towards the Wraith ship. Didn't say anything to anyone, just started walking.

All the while, a crescendo building in his head. _I gave him the gun, I gave him the gun. I have to tell them. I have to tell him. Tell him what I did, what I let happen. I have to tell him._

If he heaves any harder he might just give himself an aneurysm. He can feel the force of muscles all moving the wrong way at once. And nothing to show for it.

Boots appear, displacing sand. "McKay? You alright?"

Rodney shakes his head. Can't really talk, just breathe in huge panicked breaths. So afraid of what he has to say, and deathly afraid of the next heave.

Sheppard crouches down. "Rodney?"

"I never."

He heaves and only manages to bring up more acid from the bottom of his stomach because there's nothing. Spits and spits and breathes and breathes, and truly believes that he has not only found the bottom of hell, but managed to get sick while there.

Sheppard puts a hand on his shoulder. "Never what?"

"Never killed anyone before. Never."

Sheppard stands up in a hurry and the safety clicks off his nine millimeter, the one he was picking up off the floor of the jumper before Rodney walked off.

And at the bottom of the hill another round of safeties, sounding like distant applause, follows from Ford and the two marines with him.

"Major?"

"McKay."

His name has now become another way of saying "slowly, with your hands in the air". For a brief moment while the world swirls and another wave of nausea passes over him, Rodney contemplates asking him to do it. Just shoot him. Which would stop the heaves and then Rodney wouldn't have to deal with any of this. But he doesn't want to make John do it and he doesn't want to die. Yet.

He doesn't want to be Gaul. Can't be Gaul. God, anything but that. Anything but a bullet through his brain on some stupid planet in a whole other galaxy. He doesn't want to die in the sand here. Doesn't want to give the Wraith anymore victories. Doesn't want to abandon Atlantis. Because he knows – clarity coming from the fact that the nausea is in recession, but recession like the tide and it will return – that Atlantis needs him still. That Pegasus Galaxy isn't done with him and he's not nearly done with it.

"I gave him the gun. He shot himself when my back was turned. Stupid son of a bitch. Just shot himself."

Sheppard lowers his weapon.

"Why? I mean – he was alive. Beckett could've fixed him. Or something."

"That's what I said!" Rodney insists. "He shot himself so I would leave."

"What?"

"I kept saying that I wanted to help you, that I didn't want to stay in the ship and then next thing I know. God, why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?"

"You think he...?"

It's amazing how much Sheppard _doesn't_ have to say to make that point.

"I think he figured it out."

 

 

 **II. Comfort**

It's not Rodney's first night without sleep. Won't be his last. It just happens to be a night in which he needs to sleep and doesn't have a clue why he can't.

He lays stomach down on his bed with his arm dangling over the side. He think about maybe a midnight – or two am – snack, but nothing he could rustle up at this hour would be worth it and there was Beckett's snide remark about lovehandles and Sheppard's complete lack of anything resembling an attempt to hide his amusement.

Today has been all about being completely pissed at Gaul – in fact, the last two weeks have been about that. Everything had to be rearranged. Schedules, projects, everything. Nobody wanted to take his things either. Nobody wanted his laptop, his desk, his materials. They acted like it was contaminated. And then, nobody was willing to at least close out his work on the Ancient satellite. Someone even started crying when it came up at the department meeting. 

Rodney couldn't help but scream at them all. For being stupid. And then calling Gaul an idiot. Which ended up in him going off on a tirade in front of everyone who just stood there and marveled. Because it was pretty extreme, and they weren't expecting it. Even from him. _Especially_ from him.

They all expected him to snipe and say smart remarks or even show a complete indifference to it. They'd never seen him scream like that. Mostly because he never had. Well, surprise, surprise. He turned out to be a very angry human being who was screaming in lieu of having a complete meltdown. Which got him sent straight to Elizabeth. Who patted his hand, smiled at him, and said she understood. Rodney was sure that she wanted to, it meant something that she tried. But nobody seemed to get it. Not even the psychiatrist, which was on his next stop.

But four hours later, he came back with a bottle full of some kind of happy pill – and god, the _look_ on Beckett's face when he went to pick it up – and a whole staff of people who were sickeningly polite and sorry and afraid to so much as disagree with him (oh now they decide to stop asking stupid questions, was that all it took, someone getting shot?) and all the problems still there.

Although, it kind of answered the 'why am I not sleeping?' question when he thought about it. He's trying not to think about it, but the downside if genius is that you never don't think. 

The door slides open, Rodney sits up and sees Sheppard in the doorway, with a very thick book under his arm.

"I can't sleep," Sheppard says. "And you have a better lamp. So, I figured if you weren't sleeping."

"That you'd read me War and Peace as a bedtime story?"

"Puts me right to sleep."

"You still on schedule?"

"A little ahead, actually," Sheppard tells him. He looks around for a chair – which Rodney doesn't have for want of space – and sees the pills on the nightstand. Rodney is a bit confused when he sees Sheppard staring until he follows Sheppard's line of sight. "You okay?"

"Oh, yeah. They were handing out free samples in the lab. You know me, can't help myself." Rodney even smiles, because Sheppard does. They kind of grin at each other for a moment. Mutual respect and a healthy dose of snark, mostly.

"You don't have a chair."

"Why would I need a chair?"

"So I could have somewhere to sit."

"I knew I forgot something when I moved in." Rodney lays down and rolls over to the edge of the bed. "If you take your shoes off, you can sit on the bed."

There's a small plop as the book hits the bed and then Sheppard sits down. Takes his shoes off and lays on the bed.

For a while there's silence and the flipping of pages. Then Sheppard says, "Is there something I should know?"

"About?"

"They gave you drugs, Rodney. They don't just hand out drugs."

"I'm not going to take them."

"You sure that's such a good idea?"

"I'm perfectly fine."

"No, you're not," Sheppard says, plainly. No force in his voice. No need to convince anyone. It's already a fact as far as he's concerned. He has this way of never raising the pitch or volume of his voice too much, even when he's screaming. It's weird. It's not precisely a monotone, but it gets Rodney's attention in a way nothing else does.

"Let's put it this way – I can still perform my duties and I'm not a threat to myself or others."

"You know, I could kick you off the team for that. Ground you to Atlantis until you do."

Rodney doesn't even roll over. Just keeps his eyes closed. His stomach starts to ache.

"Then get it over with," Rodney grinds out. He can take this. He's laying down and he'll just breathe deep and it won't hurt him if Sheppard sends him away. It won't.

"Eh. I probably wouldn't take them either," Sheppard says, suddenly all shrugs and indifference. Rodney considers that were it not for the fact that he's a well trained soldier, he might throw something. At his face. Or that hair. "Just make sure there's not a problem. Because if I think there is, even if it *doesn't* affect your performance, then I _will_ make sure you don't get near that gate."

Rodney sits up, violently. "What? If it's not affecting my performance, then what the hell does it matter?"

Sheppard puts down his book. "Because I said it does. And I'm the ranking military officer."

"I'm a civilian!"

"I didn't say it was an order. It's a friendly warning."

"Oh, yeah. Because that's what friends do. They threaten take away other friends' life's _work_. No wonder you're such a popular guy!"

Sheppard takes a deep breath. "Actually, it is what friends do. I can't replace you. And I'm not going to let you do this if it means that you're not going to come back intact."

Rodney looks like he's amazed, but not in a good way. In a this-is-the-most-spectacularly-stupid-thing-I've-ever-heard way.

"What?"

"You saw a man shoot himself."

"I didn't _see_ it."

"You were there. And that does something. I've seen guys get shot and I know what it does."

"We're on an expedition to another galaxy, John. Short of locking me in a box, I'm going to see things. And in case you hadn't noticed, I'm older than you and I've been sitting at the adult table for quite a while now."

"Doesn't matter, it'll change you," Sheppard warns, turning up the volume - no, not volume, force - just slightly.

Next thing Rodney knows, the book is on the floor and he is straddling Sheppard with the man's shirt in his hands, shaking him with a rather impressive amount of force, "Everything changes, it's call the law of entropy, look it up! I am perfectly all right! And if I hadn't been sweating bullets because I love you then Gaul wouldn't have shot himself!"

Then he stops. And realizes something is wrong with him. He stares at Sheppard and lets go of his shirt and looks very confused. Because is confused and a sinister, creeping feeling that something is very bad is curling around him like a fast growing vine. Sheppard must see it all over Rodney's face. See it in the way he's looking through every object in the room.

Sheppard moves really slow and really efficiently off the bed and he has that look. That 'I'm about to resort to hand signals while we sneak around these trees and try not to get our asses blown off' look. The kind when the air is tight and quiet and something bad is about to get thrown at them so he's getting ready to catch. Hard.

"Rodney?"

"I'm sorry - I didn't – that wasn't. I have to go."

Rodney makes a rush for the door. And he's in no shape to be held responsible for anything he does once he leaves the room. So Sheppard wills the door to stay closed and jumps off of the bed quick enough to have Rodney pressed against the door. Sheppard holds his wrists.

"Just calm down," he tells him, right in his ear. "The Rodney I know isn't usually this crazy."

Rodney pushes back. Hard. He elbows Sheppard in the gut and pushes against the door with all the strength he has. Sheppard grabs him around the chest and they both go tumbling backward. Sheppard twists mid-fall like a cat so that they land on their sides instead of Rodney on top of him.

Sheppard's weight shouldn't be that hard to shrug off. Rodney's pretty certain that he weighs a lot more, but as soon as he gets a hand unpinned, Sheppard has it pinned back to the floor. Any motion just puts him in an ever deteriorating position. Finally, Sheppard ends up on top of his back with one arm chickenwinged and a knee at the base of his spine.

"Rodney!" he shouts. "Take a deep breath."

"If you don't let me go, I'll scream," he threatens. And it doesn't pass him by that he sounds all of twelve.

"We can do that. But the minute anybody else walks in that door, the story changes. Because as far as anyone else on this station is concerned, you just had a psychotic episode and I had to restrain you."

"Oh, and your shoes just fell off in the altercation?"

"Fine, I came in to talk, I took my shoes off and *then* you had a psychotic episode."

"You're an asshole, you know that."

"I'm hurt. Really."

"Do you have any plans for letting me go or are we just going to stay here on the floor for the rest of our natural lives?" Rodney even gives an experimental wiggle.

Sheppard says, "Can I trust you to calm down?"

"I'm calm. I'm cool. I'm a frickin' cucumber. Just let me up."

So Sheppard does. Rodney flexes his arm. "That's the hand I write with. Lucky you didn't snap it off."

"Now, are we all going to act like sane people or do I need ask Beckett for a sedative?"

He continues to rub his shoulder and look offended as he sits down on his bed. "That really hurt. What was that for?"

"You went a little nuts."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did."

"Didn't."

"Yes you _did_."

"No, I _didn't_. You're the one who went postal. Who tackled _who_ , Major?"

"Like you weren't on top of me shaking me like a maraca!" Sheppard fires back. He stops for a moment. "Is it maraca or morocco?"

Rodney ponders this for a brief second and answers quietly, "I don't know." He goes back to the argument, again, saying "And I wouldn't have been doing that if you hadn't threatened everything I've ever worked for with your little alpha-male 'I can have you kicked off the team because I'm the ranking military officer' routine."

"I was worried about you!"

It's not a revelation to either of them that concern was Sheppard's motivation. They both knew it. But silence reigns in the room, and the words spoke out loud are an epiphany for them both, one going deeper than he's strictly comfortable with. The only logical solution it to make it go away before it goes into a place he can't deal with. 

"Well, you're a major. You should have better things to do," he snipes back, all the meanness and sharp biting judgment in his voice he can muster. Which is quite a bit.

"A member of my team saw a colleague get shot. It's my *job*."

"Maybe, I don't want to be your job anymore!"

"You're not."

Rodney doesn't say anything. He's holding his head and the next thing he knows he's toppling forward and Sheppard his catching him and pushing him back onto the bed.

"Dizzy."

"Now *will* you calm down?"

"Why am I dizzy?" he asks, putting a hand on his head. He feels clammy to his own touch.

"It's called stress," Sheppard says, sitting at his feet.

"Thank you, I've heard of it," he says, in a snippy voice.

Sheppard goes around to the other side of the bed and picks up his book. He lays down on the bed beside Rodney – the opposite side of where he started, although he isn't sure why that's an interesting thing – and starts to read again.

"I'm going to be over here if you need me."

Rodney just lays there. He says a long overdue, "Thanks."

And then, after another long silence, he asks, "How much trouble am I in?"

"As long as you don't give me any more bruises – none."

"Why are you bothering?"

Sheppard marks his place in his book by dog earring a page.

"Because you're the only one who's ever really been worth it."

Rodney doesn't understand, but knows that's the answer he asked for. He rolls over and decides to sleep on it.

 

 

 

 **III. Brilliance**

He slept like a baby. A baby on morphine. And Rodney decides that it's mostly a positive thing. Since he'd hate to sleep away his free day and tomorrow he has to take a group of scientists exploring in the city and hold their hands and really, it's an overglorified field trip. But Elizabeth insisted and anything is better than waiting around for Sheppard to put them back on the active duty roster so they can nab an actual mission instead of watching everyone else get the goods. With his luck, they'll all come back bearing ZPM's and answers to the universe.

And he will have been sleeping.

John's gone, but no big surprise there. Rodney wasn't sure why he expected him to stay. He gets new clothes on and leaves his room. He checks his watch and it's not yet six am station time. Things are still quiet because the station truly doesn't wake up until around six thirty, seven. And he goes to his lab. Technically he has things he could be doing but he just stares at his open laptop and can't really think of anything that he cares to devote energy to doing.

"Here we have the alpha geek in his natural habitat."

Rodney looks and sees John coming into the lab. His hair is – if possible – even more out of control and he's wearing civilian clothes. When he wears clothes like that, and he's not holding a weapon or wearing large sunglasses that make Rodney think of police that pull people over for speeding – Rodney has a hard time believing the man is military. Much less a major.

He seems younger by at least twenty years and a damn sight less tired.

"I realize that as my team leader it's your right and privilege to make my life that much harder, but we've got plenty of time to snipe at each other on the next mission. So if you don't mind, I'm terribly busy and important."

"Before I let you get back to being busy and important, it might help to turn the laptop on."

Rodney smiles, points at John in a mockery of recognition. "And they say there's no such thing as military intelligence."

"We at the United States Air Force do our best," John bandies back. He comes over to the desk where Rodney is and sits on the edge of it. He crosses his arms and looks comfortable. Like he's been doing this for years.

Rodney thinks that he could stand to do this all day long. That maybe he could spend the entire day bitching at John. It's an oddly satisfying sport. Mostly because John can be pretty clever when Rodney least expects it.

"So did you need me or were you suffering from separation anxiety. I can shake you like a morocco again, if you want. I can never tell, is it morocco or maraca?"

"I think it's maraca."

"Maybe. They wouldn't name a musical instrument after a country would they?"

"They name nuts after countries. Brazil nuts...pistacchios"

"There is not a country named Pistacchio. We're on an international station. Somebody would have noticed."

"There could be. A long time ago."

"The lost civilization of Pistacchio. They drifted into history, leaving only their nuts behind."

At this point, they are both simultaneously forced to give up the illusion of seriousness. Because they're both edging ever closer to free fall and the night before they were nearly in a fist fight and now here they are, discussing nuts. John is bent so that he's very close to Rodney's eye level and he turns so that he's facing Rodney. And he pushes Rodney's chair so that is rolls until it backs up against the wall. Then he braces himself on the arm rests and leans in until he's kissing Rodney.

At first Rodney is in shock. And shock fades into a general feeling of 'oh yeah!' which then fades into him simultaneously grabbing John and eyeing the door urgently.

"Public place! Public place! Public place!" Rodney repeats, until it gets through John's head and he backs off.

In one easy motion, John is back on the edge of the desk as though he never left. Rodney kind of wonders if it actually happened or he had a momentary break with reality.

"I came here for a reason," John tells him. "Come on."

Rodney pushes his chair under and follows behind John. Before they get to the door, John looks back and smiles, saying, "Sure you don't want to turn off your laptop?"

It makes Rodney do a double take until he realizes that he never even turned it on. He gives John a narrow eyed look like an unhappy cat. And John smiles like a very *happy* cat.

They go two levels up to a room that isn't being used because it's too small to be a lab and too oddly shaped to be quarters. It does, however, have a spacious balcony. John locks the door to the room. Then locks the door to the balcony. Outside, Atlantis is still in a pre-dawn shadow of dark blue and gray. The sea obsidian black glass. But at the bottom of the sky line, there is a tinge of red, the first flush of daylight coming over the horizon.

"Is there something about this balcony I should know, because we have a lot of these in Atlantis. They're all over. You could do Romeo and Juliet in every language on Earth simultaneously."

"Yeah, but we're here for the view."

"The view off of the control tower is –"

John pushes him against the wall.

"I'm not done yet," John warns. His voice is low and rumbly and something about it is both dangerous and pleasing. John pushes Rodney against the wall and bites on his ear. Goes down the side of his throat and always keeps a steady, not-quite-bruising pressure on the center of Rodney's chest.

Rodney says nothing. He can say nothing. John's hands are quick, nimble. They coax him into hardness and he scrapes his knuckles against the wall, hands fisted as a measure of control over the slow and steady heat inside of him that's rising.

"Someone could see," Rodney thinks, aloud, which makes it actually saying, but his brain isn't quite working linearly. John says nothing and Rodney scans the area for possible vantage points that anyone else could use to see them from afar. And he realizes there are none. This balcony is a blind spot. It faces the sea at a place where the city comes to a sharp point. The only other buildings are on either side and they are both smaller, squat buildings that have windows facing away.

His pants slide down and John is on his knees in front of him and there's no hesitating or run up. There's wet, soft lips on the tip of his cock and the next thing Rodney knows, the man has his face right in his pubes because he has taken it to the hilt. All Rodney can do is give a startled, high noise and put hands into John's wild, wild hair. It's softer than he expected, thick, wonderful. 

John stops and pulls off long enough to say, "Keep your eyes open."

He could get Rodney to agree to just about anything at that moment, but that's all he wants and it makes that stunning surprise of a mouth come back and envelop Rodney, so he does it and he puts every last inch of his will power into not squeezing his eyes closed, because he's getting a blowjob on a balcony right now and John Sheppard is digging fingers into his hips and if Rodney looks down their eyes will meet and he'll actually see himself being sucked off.

So the horizon it is, as the sun rises. The gray and blue are melted away by the red and purple dawn of the morning. Brighter and more intense than Earth, purer. The light is coming straight for his eyes. He has to shut them. He has no choice. The light is blinding. The pleasure is blinding. Tight in his stomach, tingling along his skin.

For a moment nothing exists except for the bright red of the sunlight even while his eyes are closed and the sensation of John's mouth, John's hands, John's hair. The rhythm is demanding but not desperate, this isn't some girl (or guy) in the backseat wanting it to be over. John is literally giving him a reverse face fuck right now and riding him hard into the sunrise, riding every last single thought out of his head.

Rodney doesn't believe in god. But feeling John like this, and the heat of an alien sun, he wants to. Because something is good, something is right. Why that's the tripwire that sets off the explosion, he can't say, but it is absolute truth - like gravity, light, physics - as he's spurting down John's throat. This is worth it, this isn't wrong. Even afraid and set adrift in a place they're not likely to survive, he gets it. Maybe he's lost, but he's lost with John. And maybe that's the same thing as finding a way home.

Maybe he's been home all along, with John Sheppard and the bright, bright sun.

  
\- END -


End file.
